Prime Minister Andy Burnham's plan to reorganise policing across England and Wales into fewer, larger regional forces has hit a significant delay after the review drawing up the new map was told to revisit its proposals so they fit the Government's devolution agenda.
The independent review, led by former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe, was originally expected to report during the summer after being launched in March.
But the Financial Times reported on 28 August that the review will now be delivered in the autumn, with no new deadline yet fixed, after concerns that proposed police-force boundaries did not align with the strategic-authority boundaries at the heart of Burnham's devolution plans.
The Home Office has not yet published a revised timetable. Its official position remains that it is working with policing partners to deliver the reforms.
Review was supposed to report in the summer
The Home Office appointed Hogan-Howe in March to lead an independent review of police force structures.
Its terms of reference say the review is intended to recommend the optimum number and configuration of forces across England and Wales, as well as identify which areas could be suitable for pathfinder mergers during the current Parliament.
The official terms state that the review would run for five months. When Hogan-Howe was appointed, the Home Office said his recommendations would be given to the Home Secretary by the summer.
The reported move to an autumn publication therefore represents a slippage against the original timetable, although ministers have not yet announced a replacement deadline.
Devolution boundaries create new complication
According to the Financial Times, Hogan-Howe was asked to revisit his draft recommendations because some proposed force boundaries did not match the strategic authorities being developed under Burnham's devolution programme.
The issue is one of geographical alignment. Burnham's Government wants key public services to operate across the same broad regional boundaries where possible, an approach often described in Whitehall as “coterminosity”.
The FT reported that regional mayors had raised concerns about draft police boundaries in areas including the North East and East Midlands.
Those details are based on FT reporting rather than a published Home Office document and should therefore be treated as reported accounts of the reason for the delay, rather than as a formally announced Government explanation.
Government still wants fewer, larger forces
The underlying restructuring programme itself is official Government policy.
The Police Reform White Paper published in January said the current model of 43 territorial forces in England and Wales would be replaced over time by fewer, larger forces.
The Government says larger regional forces would be better able to undertake complex investigations and specialist functions that can be difficult for smaller forces to sustain independently.
When Hogan-Howe was appointed, the Home Office said the future regional forces would handle complex investigations including homicide, drugs and county lines, while specialist functions such as firearms, roads policing and cybercrime could be consolidated to build greater expertise.
National Police Service also planned
The merger programme forms part of a wider overhaul of policing.
The Government's White Paper also proposes creating a new National Police Service to take responsibility for functions that ministers believe are better handled nationally rather than through dozens of separate forces.
The Home Office says the national body would set stronger standards and provide a more consistent service across the country, while larger regional forces would retain responsibility for major operational policing within their areas.
Local policing areas would sit beneath the new regional forces and focus on neighbourhood priorities including shop theft, drug dealing, phone theft and anti-social behaviour.
Hogan-Howe review will determine the new map
The number of forces that will ultimately remain has not yet been decided.
The review's official purpose is to determine the optimum number of forces and the geographic areas they should cover.
Reports have suggested the total could fall dramatically from the current 43, but no final figure has been formally adopted by the Government.
The review is also expected to consider governance and accountability arrangements and how mergers should be implemented.
Local opposition is already significant
The reforms have already attracted resistance in some areas.
A consultation launched by Hertfordshire's Police and Crime Commissioner received 3,697 responses from residents, businesses and community groups.
According to the PCC's published results, 68% opposed police mergers while 15% supported them.
Respondents cited fears of slower emergency response times, fewer visible patrols and local policing priorities being overshadowed by larger regional concerns.
Those figures represent the results of the Hertfordshire consultation and should not be treated as a measure of national public opinion.
Burnham reforms collide
The political problem for Downing Street is that the reported delay appears to have been caused not by opposition to the principle of police mergers, but by a clash between two parts of the Government's own reform programme.
Burnham has made regional devolution a central part of his domestic agenda, while the Home Office is simultaneously attempting the largest restructuring of police-force boundaries in generations.
If the two systems are to share the same regional geography, changes to one inevitably affect the other.
That creates a practical challenge for ministers: designing police regions around operational policing needs while also making them fit the strategic-authority map being developed for devolved government.
Home Office says reform remains on course
Responding to the FT, the Home Office said it was working closely with policing partners to deliver major reform.
It said the Government wanted to rebuild confidence by putting the right policing in the right place, strengthening neighbourhood policing, raising standards and ensuring communities could access national and specialist police services.
The department did not, however, provide a new deadline for Hogan-Howe's report.
Delay creates fresh questions over implementation
The review is important because the Government's wider timetable depends on agreeing the new force map before individual mergers can begin.
The Home Office says it wants to move from the existing 43-force model to fewer, larger forces by the end of the next Parliament, while also identifying pathfinder mergers that can begin sooner.
A delay of several weeks may not derail that long-term objective, but it underlines how difficult large-scale territorial reorganisation can become when police, local government and devolved institutions are being redesigned at the same time.
For Burnham, the immediate political difficulty is clear: a flagship police restructuring has reportedly been pushed back because its proposed boundaries did not fit another flagship reform being driven from Downing Street.
Sources
- Financial Times: Plan to merge police forces falls foul of Burnham's devolution agenda
- Home Office: Lord Hogan-Howe appointed to lead independent review of police force structures
- Home Office: Independent review of police force structures — terms of reference
- Home Office: From local to national — a new model for policing
- Hertfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner: Police force mergers consultation outcome